


Hospitality

by Karios



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Stranded, The Aliens Ship Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-08-29 02:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16735311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: When the TARDIS leaves Rose and the Doctor stranded, the local inhabitants try to make them feel at home. Try is the operative word.





	Hospitality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galfridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/gifts).



> Your specific prompts were incredible, but I couldn't find the story that did them justice. I hope my take on tropey Rose & Nine fic meets with your approval.
> 
> Thank you to Sailor Chrome & rosefox for their betaing. Remaining mistakes are the result of post-beta additions.

Outside the TARDIS doors was a dreary-looking beach.

“It's close?” Rose offered, charitably, as she stepped onto the sand. She bent down and plucked a shell out of the sodden ground. “Maybe we just parked too far from the city side?”

The Doctor followed a step behind, his leather jacket blowing in the slight breeze. “We should be able to see the coral fields from anywhere on Splendurosa,” he said, stepping back inside to check a map and his time coordinates. Meanwhile, the planet’s inhabitants came surging toward the TARDIS from somewhere beyond the horizon line, closing the distance with remarkable speed.

“I can try again. Should only take one more crack at it,” the Doctor continued, though Rose’s attention was on the approaching horde of strange sea horse, land horse hybrid aliens. Their long muscled legs clopped along like those of Earth horses in a near-deafening roar, loud enough to block out the sound of the time rotor starting up.

“Maybe we should go now, yeah?” said Rose.

“That might be a problem.” The Doctor tugged on the doors of the dematerializing TARDIS, pointing his sonic in an attempt to stabilize her.

Despite his efforts, the TARDIS buggered off anyway, leaving them stranded.

The Doctor kicked the sand where the TARDIS once stood, sonicking into the empty air until they were encircled. Once the herd arrived, he quit trying and moved to stand one step behind Rose.

Up close, she took in not only burly equine legs that looked like they could crush her underfoot, but their lithe, scaly bodies. Their faces with long, straw-like noses, betrayed no emotion and held no real expression.

Without the benefit of the TARDIS translation circuit, Rose couldn't understand their speech either. The Doctor seemed to speak horse-sea-horse, making a series of click-and-babble sounds that reminded Rose of human infants. It would have been amusing if she weren't completely at the natives’ mercy.

After a few tense minutes the chatter stopped, and Rose recognized the universal signs of being asked to ‘come this way, now!’ on this planet as well as any other. She allowed herself to be ushered forward. The Doctor had a few more quick words with individuals Rose assumed to be in charge, his hands gesturing wildly. 

Rose came to a stop in front of a large dark hole.

She’d turned part the way round to ask what was happening when someone pushed her down the hole. She landed feet first in something soft, which thankfully slowed her descent and cushioned her fall.

A second later a thud announced that someone else had landed next to her. “Get up,” the Doctor ordered with such alarming urgency that Rose slipped, stumbled, and clawed her way back onto her feet without questioning it.

By the time her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the underground area, Rose saw she was knee deep in goo. The substance was blue, viscous and difficult to move in. It was a pleasant temperature but that wasn't enough to make her any happier about the whole thing.

After that order when they first landed, the Doctor had, otherwise, fallen silent. In fact, he seemed at ease, crouched into a sitting position and resting his forearms on the surface. His head was tipped back, and his eyes were shut. Like someone's granddad caught napping in an easy chair. Considering the situation and how tense he'd been when they'd first discovered that the TARDIS was gone, his present state seemed remarkably, annoyingly serene.

Rose waited, feeling herself sink into the goo until she'd settled at about waist-deep, and still nothing from the Doctor. Since no explanation seemed forthcoming from him, she asked, “How did we end up in jail this time?”

The Doctor eyes opened and he twisted to face Rose as best he could. “Er, this isn't exactly a jail.”

Rose fixed him with the impatient look that she drudged up whenever she'd suspected he was hiding something. “Then what do they call it when they shove perfectly pleasant visitors down a hole and into a puddle of jelly?”

“Shazblorb,” the Doctor said.

Rose's look merely continued.

“In 21st Century, Earth, English terms, it's a honeymoon suite.” The Doctor plowed on ahead, “Campi will be back to collect us in roughly 14 hours and one of her mates offered to help get a lock on the–”

“Honey–” parroted Rose.

“–TARDIS so it won't–”

“–moon–”

“–be that bad really,” he finished.

“–suite,” she sounded that last word out slowly like a child learning to read.

“Doctor!” She wished again that she weren't navel deep in this sludge, so she could whirl on him, possibly even slap him. “I know you've gotten married a coupla times and I didn't mind much when we got separated in prehistoria and I nearly got hitched to that nice, cute cavebloke Das... ”

“But,” prompted the Doctor, lips pulled tight across his teeth making Rose think he looked just a fraction jealous.

“But, if we're marryin’ each other, the decent thing to do would've been to ask me first!”

“Oh!” His eyes widened. “If it helps any, we didn't get married. I just told them we were married.”

“Because?” she asked.

“I'm not entirely sure why they assumed we might still be in the stage where we wanted a little privacy for, um, blorbing.” He stopped and Rose could see him mull it over.

“And blorbing is dancing for the horses,” concluded Rose, swapping one euphemism for another.

The Doctor nodded. “This,” he swept a hand to indicate the whole of the cave, “is meant to be hospitality.”

“Not really my kind of place. Sets the wrong mood. And anyway that didn't answer my question about why you're lying.”

“It was convenient. This culture objects to unchaperoned males, much the same way that Earth history limits the options of unaccompanied women, and for much the same reason.” So many bigoted planets, so little time, he thought. “I could have claimed you were my mother, but that strains the imagination a tick.”

She glared at him. “I don't see you volunteering to play my husband.”

He had, actually, on a number of planets. Furthermore, any number of ordinary things they did had paired them off in the eyes of the local population of dozens more. Rather than defending himself, he shot back with, “Is it that terrible? Couldn't possibly be married to me, is that it?”

“You know that's not true!” Rose said, and even though her eyes still blaze with fury there's no mistaking the pain in them when she added, “Besides it's you who'd be stuck with a stupid ape.”

“Rose, you’re not-”

“Stow it,” she snapped, and Rose could swore she heard an audible click when his mouth shut.

Rose tried to sit the way the Doctor had been, but either her center of balance was different or her feet were planted all wrong because the second she stuck her bum out, she wobbled and had to windmill frantically to keep from falling flat on her back and sinking completely into the goop.

The Doctor, to his credit, didn't laugh at her failed attempt as she might've expected. Instead, he took tiny shuffling steps, cutting his way forward until he could sit in front of her. He held out his arms and Rose accepted his offer to act as a temporary chair.

“How come you can do that and I can't?”

“I'm making myself less dense than the surrounding fluid,” he explained. “Your body can't make changes on a cellular level.”

“Oh right. Course.” she said, feeling slightly foolish.

“I don't think you’d want to,” he said, and Rose could hear a slight hitch to his speech.

This close, Rose could see his teeth were gritted and there was a fine sheen of sweat clinging to the Doctor's forehead. “Does it hurt?”

“Not much,” he said. The words stacked up rather unconvincing up this close.

Yet here he was, holding her up too. “I would have kept standing,” she said softly.

“I know,” he said. “But you were right. My fault, all of this. So if we sink, we sink together, yeah?”

She wiped her fingers free of the muck on a relatively clean patch of her denim, so that she could run that same hand along his nubs of hair, her face pinched in sympathy.

Of course, given all this time what nothing else to do but think, Rose couldn't help but wonder aloud: “Why did they fill the honeymoon suite with lethal jelly anyway?”

“It's not lethal to the locals, and not particularly deadly for us either. The mild paralytic effect will wear off shortly after we're cleaned up. It's just if your head or chest went under you'd have significant trouble breathing.”

“But you could?”

“For a time,” he confirmed.

The chord of guilt around her chest squeezed painfully. She wouldn't let herself dwell on it, not with so much time left. She'd go batty.

“So, what now?” she asked, adjusting her grip on the Doctor.

“Bit busy keeping us afloat,” he said but his voice held enough of a teasing note that Rose knew he didn't mind.

“We could play a game?”

“Any suggestions?”

The Doctor nixed truth or dare, citing that their inability to move limited their choice of potential dares. Rose rejected mental chess; the Doctor said he believed Rose could remember the board just fine. I, Spy burned out after a few minutes on account of having less than a dozen things to spy. They played several versions of Alpha and Omega, having particular fun with animals.

“Walrus,” said Rose.

“Shrew”

“Wolf”

“Flubble.”

Rose laughed. “Doctor, there's no such animal as a flubble.”

“Yes there is. I had a flubble. She slept under my bed.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, there aren't any flubbles on Earth. No fair picking from other places.”

“How am I supposed to remember what's on Earth and what's not?” 

“About the same way I'd remember a chessboard.”

He sulked a little, which helped Rose to feel better.

“How long have we got left now?”

“Twelve hours, ten minutes and eight seconds,” he said then added, “Acute sense of time. Parlour trick.”

They settled in to wait quietly for a tick. Rose counted backwards; she watched the goo; she definitely did not think about how nice the Doctor smelled with her nose practically buried the crook of his neck.

She wondered if the Doctor's mind was wandering too, as she swore for just a second there, they'd been sinking. Stupid shazawhatever.

“What do they need the jelly for, anyway?” Rose asked, still curious. “Clearly they can live and move on land. Is it their between shags snack?”

“Oh no, it's a lubricant. Keeps the seahorse bits from drying out.”

She was soaked in alien ky. Rose’s nose wrinkled in disgust. Still she couldn’t keep the smile from her face a few moments later.

“You know what helps?” 

“Hm?”

“Thinking about how mad Jack will be that he missed it!”


End file.
